How to Increase Klout After Klout Changes – & Why You Care!

Wondering how to increase your Klout now that Klout has changed their scoring algorithm? I recently wrote a popular post after I discovered the best way to increase Klout, and enjoyed a rise of several points in a week. But just 2 days ago, Klout changed and broadened how they calculate scores. The good news – they’re now being more transparent about what influences your Klout score, allowing you to “shape your online image to reflect who you are as an influencer.” [pinit]

How to Increase Klout After Klout Changes

Klout has greatly expanded what influences your Klout score. “We went from about 100 variables that we were looking at to over 400,” Joe Fernandez, founder and CEO of Klout told Mashable. One big change is that Klout is now including measures of offline influence, such as Wikipedia pages about an individual, and their job title on LinkedIn. Best news: Jusin Bieber is no longer the standard of influence with a perfect 100 score – he’s dropped to 92. The new ranking system places Barack Obama as the most influential person, with a score of 99, up from 94.

The new Klout Moments page design will show you the content that’s resonating with your audience and increasing your Klout score. Moments will be rolling out over the next few weeks.

A Moment is a social media post that has generated action from the people in your networks. You’ll be able to visit your profile page for a summary of your best content from the past 90 days. You can see the response to and impact of your content – and tweak your social media strategy accordingly.

Klout is revealing which factors affect your score, and interestingly – Facebook is listed first, so perhaps it’s still the most influential factor. From Klout.com:

Here are some of the top signals we measure by network:

Facebook

Mentions: A mention of your name in a post indicates an effort to engage with you directly. [how to tag first names]

Comments: As a reaction to content you share, comments also reflect direct engagement by your network.

foursquare

Tips Done: The number of suggestions you’ve left that have been completed indicate your ability to influence others on foursquare.

Klout

+K received: Receiving +K increases your Klout Score by an amount that is capped in every 90-day measurement cycle to protect the integrity of the Score.

Wikipedia

Page Importance: Measured by applying a PageRank algorithm against the Wikipedia page graph.

Inlinks to Outlinks Ratio: Compares the number of inbound links to a page to the number of outbound links.

Number of Inlinks: Measures the total number of inbound links to a page.

The number and influence of those who engage with you is also factored in. For more specifics, check this page. The bottom line? Share great content and engage, engage, engage. When you engage with others by responding to their comments, likes, tweets, etc, you’re showing you appreciate them, thus encouraging them to do more of the same.

But Klout is just a number, and an inaccurate one at that!

Yes – it is. As human beings, we’re not the sum of our social media influence – and especially not the number that some computer algorithm assigns to it. However, your Klout score IS being used by others to categorize you – like it or not.

Further reading: The book Return on Influence:The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing will help you understand what your Klout score means to your career or business. Author Mark Schaefer presents a fair and balanced perspective on this hot button issue. He doesn’t say Klout is good or bad—just that “it is what it is,” and that people and companies are factoring it into decisions about YOU.

About Louise Myers

Louise Myers is a graphic design expert whose designs have been featured by Disney, Macy's, WalMart and more. Her straightforward writing style empowers small business owners to make their own graphics for social media success!

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Comments

Thank you for sharing so clearly how Klout scores are calculated and what can be done to increase them. I also appreciate the book recommendation as it looks like the information will be presented in a way that is very balanced.

Though am not yet convinced by Klout or to say any other so -called influence measurement tool. I still don’t believe that giving +K or having my name called out will make me influential about a certain topic. Influence is the power to sway opinion and that is something that can’t be measured by any number. In absence of any science behind it, these tool are easily gamed and score raised by people who know it well. Instead of promoting those flawed tools, shouldn’t we be educating business to not believe in them.

There are probably flaws in any system that purports to rank influence, websites, or any number of things. Yet people love to put things in order! You can certainly choose to opt out and/or influence others too as well.